Death of a Nation: Russia After the Fall of Communism
Oct 1st, 2009 by Brendan Perry
True Stories: Death of a Nation is a documentary that profiles Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Marcel Theroux investigates first-hand the political, economic, and social issues that surround the troubled nation. The issues that are examined include the Russian oligarchs and “gangster capitalism”, the HIV epidemic taking place in the country, the extreme gap between rich and poor, the rise of the right-wing in the political arena, and the conditions that produce a “third world” mortality rate.
In my opinion, this documentary is one of the clearest and most explicit portrayals of development. The economic and political holes that have been left following the collapse of communism are enormous, these holes have only since expanded and left a poverty stricken, hopeless Russian population. The neo-liberal hyper shift from a communist state to a capitalist system has had many serious negative ramifications on society. Even following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West has since shared a continued “us versus them” mentality in relation to the former communist state. As a result, the problems embedded in today’s Russia are often unknown or overlooked. In addition, the small number of Russian oligarchs control vast regions of the economic landscape and carry considerable political weight as well. The gap between rich and poor only widens.
The concept of “subaltern” can be seen in how the Russian government treats some of its people. The people laden with poverty have lost their voice in their own democratic country. This becomes a challenging notion that can be applied to other parts of the world, even in our own backyard. Moreover, the example of the Meskhetian Turks being denied Russian citizenship despite the “country’s dwindling population” is interesting because it plainly shows the apparent gap between government and its people.
Keep in mind that there have been changes within the country politically and economically recently, but these changes sometimes are overshadowed by the fact that some of the population has “lost the will to survive”.
The primary concern of the documentary is to understand the issue of the slow death of the Russian population. The documentary shows this by laying out the trickle-down effect from politics to economics, and how these realms directly affect the condition of the Russian people.
This is only part 1 of 6, one can get the other 5 parts in www.youtube.com
I really enjoyed this documentary, and I hope everyone else does too!